Evolution
by RedCakeband
Summary: A story of a girl with nothing to lose, but everything to gain. *This is an alternative Origin Story of Elena. This story fits in better with my recent writings and my own head-canon. Please R&R!*


If I sat you down and asked you a question along the lines of 'How do you feel about Shinra?' your answer would inevitably vary depending on your life experience.

If you lived in the slums and had done so all your life, well, I imagine that your language would be colorful, expressive and above all negative. On the other hand, if you were in the employ of Shinra and had managed to personally profit from them, then I imagine you would be indifferent or unwilling to engage in a discussion about the pros and cons of the company. In any case, your response would be based entirely on personal preference and experience.

For Elena however, things were quite different. If pressed, she would confess that the company was her lifeblood, that she lived only to serve and that they had tossed her the proverbial bone in the deepest, darkest hour of her life. However, if one was persistent with their questioning, they may discover that, like so many things in this world, her statements were based on lies.

Elena was a good girl growing up. She was never in trouble and was always obedient. She was the apple of both her mother and father's eyes and she loved them dearly. Her father was a merchant who dealt primarily with restorative medicine. His business took him all over the world. He made good money due to his products so Elena and her mother lived in a spacious home in Kalm. Elena had friends and was educated at the local school. She was a top student and was very popular. Her parents were well known in the village and her father's medicine saved many a family from being torn apart by grief. The family worried for nothing and for the first eleven years of Elena's life, time passed without incident.

Alas, all good things must end and Elena's privileged life and happy childhood was no exception. At this time her mother and father were in good health and nothing out of the ordinary was predicted to befall them. However, one night Elena's father went out to the inn to meet some business associates and friends. He was gone for about three hours before any concern, however slight was raised. As it turned out, twelve hours later he was discovered five miles from the town center, unconscious with no memory of the night before. In a further seven hours Elena's father breathed his last and died from a massive internal hemorrhage and no one was any the wiser as to how it had happened. He died without saying a word in the very inn he had set out to visit the night before.

In the face of tragedy some people are able to rise above such an event, manage to grieve and continue with their life. Never quite the same, perhaps slightly more serious in their overall demeanor but have managed to deal with the situation admirably. However, there are those who in their grief are completely swallowed by tragedy and fall into a hole so deep, that they are, unfortunately, never able to climb out of it again.

In Elena's case, she was crushed beyond comprehension. Never having had to deal with anything out of the ordinary she was completely unprepared for such a life changing event. It must be noted also that as an only child, she was used to the love and attention of two parents, which overnight and without warning became only one parent. Elena was still a child at the time of her father's death, a bright but essentially naive girl who could never fully understand why her daddy left her.

To add insult to serious injury, six months after her father's unexplained death, Elena's mother lost all capability to function as a mother and hung herself in her late husband's tool shed. As a result, Elena lost both parents within six months of each other. Her grief was predictable as was her rage at her parents for leaving her so selfishly to fend for herself. What was not predictable was her complete refusal to follow in her parent's footsteps and take her own life. Indeed, her complete refusal to contemplate suicide was nothing short of inspiring. However, deep within Elena's psyche her rage at her parents death fueled desire to live and survive. As a result, she became cold, clinical and calculating, a far cry from her former self before the tragedy. Although in unguarded moments she still lapsed into naivety she was renowned for at school.

After her parent's death, Elena's welfare was immediately a concern for the citizens of Kalm. She was a well-known and much liked child although no villagers were interested in fostering her. It was wildly whispered that Elena had convinced her mother to take her own life and despite inheriting her father's extensive fortune and pharmaceutical business, no family would take her. Her recent change in personality ensured that her former friends were now afraid of the cold sad girl. With no-one willing to take her, Elena was sent to her grandmother, whom she had never met, who stayed in the far off village of Mideel.

Mideel was a far cry from Elena's childhood in Kalm. This was a place of tranquility and the inhabitants were always of a sunny, cheerful disposition. Alas due to Elena's newfound melancholy, this was a far from ideal situation for her to be placed in. However, she was a resourceful child and decided that she better make the most of it for the time being.

The children of Mideel played a variety of rough and tumble, outdoor type games that Elena was unfamiliar with. Their favourite game was basically an impromptu version of wrestling. Elena had no choice but to join in. She was old enough to realize that she was doing herself no favours by standing out even though she didn't mean it. She was also aware that relationships are an important part of life.

And so she began to fit in.

With a few months, she had gathered a rag tag bunch of followers, awed by her tragedy and her strange accent. Elena was one of the very few blondes in the village and many a youngster would gaze upon her golden hair with a mixture of envy and longing. Elena enchanted them, even though she had no intention of doing so. She was so utterly fascinating to the village children, even more so when she refused to discuss her past. She was an enigma and that made her interesting.

As Elena became used to life in Mideel, she appeared to return to her previous sunny disposition albeit with a slightly harder edge and slight world weariness about her. Her grandmother was largely to thank for this. This woman who had lost her only child and then had to look after a child that she had never even seen, let alone met, threw herself into the raising of Elena with almost manic enthusiasm. She would encourage the girl to speak of her feelings, a concept young Elena was never wholly comfortable with, but had to admit that it did help her calm down when the rage sometimes became too much. She taught Elena to cook, to read and to play the piano. After the initial awkwardness melted away, Elena's relationship with her grandmother blossomed and they became very close, very quickly.

Which is why when Elena returned from the Mideel Market one Sunday and saw her grandmother's lifeless body lying in the kitchen and her prized mounted fire materia that had been her grandfather's before he passed on, she was horrified. However, she was no longer the frightened little girl from Kalm. As much as she wished she could give into the grief that threatened to swamp her, she bent down to kiss her grandmothers icy forehead and closed her eyes. She then straightened her shoulders and closed the kitchen door. She left the house and went to inform the authorities.

It took a surprisingly short time for the events to unfold. Elena was visited by every person in the village. Sorrow was expressed and offers of help were commonplace. The general feeling was palpable shock. No one could believe that the house had been robbed. Mideel had not had a burglary, let alone a murder in the last thirty five years. The mystery surrounding the missing fire materia was the subject of much talk. Materia was not commercially available in Mideel at this time. The piece that had been stolen had been a Natural Fire Materia that Elena's grandfather had brought back from the Western continent many years before. It had never been used for conjuring, it was merely an ornament. But an ornament that meant a great deal to Elena's grandmother, hence why she had been killed trying to protect it, the people reasoned.

Through all of this speculation, Elena remained silent; her hands clasped tightly round a mug of tea. She said nothing. She looked at no one. She was lost in her own thoughts. No one knew what to do to try and coax her out of this lethargy. The village headman suggested a clasp of the shoulders might do the trick, but when he tried Elena pulled away from him and shot him a look of such revulsion that he physically recoiled. After that, everyone expressed their sorrow at a safe distance from the girl.

Elena's grandmother was buried on a Thursday. It was a bright, blustery day but the sun shone through the clouds and it was not half as cold as anyone expected. Elena stood alone at the graveside. True, her friends were gathered round her but if you looked carefully, you could see that she had subtlety removed herself from the group. The grief was hers alone. Her friends could empathise up to a point, but they all still had their families alive and well. Meanwhile Elena had no one. Completely alone in the world at the age of sixteen. How could anyone understand and offer her comfort?

As her grandmother was lowered into the ground Elena looked around. She saw families, young and old clutching each other in wake of this terrible tragedy. She saw others, with tears pouring down their faces at the loss of this great lady. Everywhere she turned, she saw the grief she was unable to express. Her grandmother had taught her to speak about her emotions, lest they consume her, but who could she possibly speak to about this? She couldn't identify her confidante in the sea of tears and downturned faces.

Until she saw him.

There was a man standing at the back of the crowd at the graveside. He was a tall man with long dark hair that he had pulled up in a ponytail. His skin was a light olive colour and his eyes were dark and intense. He was wearing a dark suit that appeared to black but the longer she looked at it, she realized it was actually a deep dark blue. She'd never seen him before and she wondered why he was here.

After the service, mourners formed a queue to speak to her. They passed on their condolences and promised to help with whatever they could. Elena barely registered any of them. She was looking for the man in the suit, but he didn't appear. Puzzled, she left the cemetery as soon as she could, determined to go home and think over this new mystery. She didn't know it, but some colour had come back to her face, changing her from ghostly white to just slightly pale. As she walked back home, she was so absorbed in the mystery that she didn't noticed how the streets had cleared. People were still wary of her you see.

When Elena got home, she opened the door and toyed with the idea of fetching herself a drink when a cold, clear voice rang out from the living room.

'We have apprehended the thief.'

Elena walked into the living room to see the man in the dark blue suit standing with his back to her. He was looking at the empty spot on the mantelpiece where the fire materia used to sit. Elena narrowed her eyes.

'We?'

It was the first word she had uttered for days and her voice cracked on the vowel. But still, she stood her ground and cleared her throat in preparation for the conversation that she knew would follow.

The man turned round to face her. His features were extraordinary. He looked as though his face had been chiseled out of marble. His cheekbones were razor sharp; his chin small but round and his eyes were so deep and so dark. Elena was transfixed by him; she had never seen anyone like him in her life. She thought he was gorgeous but she was also aware of the cold, deadly power he was radiating. This is a man who is used to being obeyed and this is a man that will do whatever it takes to ensure that he is obeyed.

He smiled. It caught her off guard.

'Yes. We have apprehended the thief that stole your heirloom. He was trying to sell it in Midgar in sector eight's Wall Market. A piece such as this attracts all kinds. It was only a matter of time before we were called in to retrieve the piece and the thief.'

Emotions were struggling for dominance in Elena's head during this speech, but she cast them aside to ask one question.

'Will you take me to the thief?'

The man's perfectly smooth forehead creased into a frown at her unusual request.

'Why?'

Elena then smiled for the first time since her grandmother's death.

'Because I want to kill him.'

Elena disappeared the day of her grandmother's funeral. The house was left just as it was. There were no clothes missing, no food gone, and no valuables taken. Even Elena's coat which she had been wearing at the funeral was casually draped over the bannister as if she planned to return for it at any moment.

The villagers discussed her disappearance with a mixture of concern and disbelief. Although Elena wasn't as popular as her other peers, her absence was acutely felt. Like all things, over time talk and gossip concerned themselves with other things and the mystery became less important.

In the years that followed the Shinra company was expanding its power. Soon it would occupy the whole world. An envoy was sent from Midgar to Mideel. President Shinra himself was rumoured to be attending. It was widely whispered that Shinra wanted to build a Mako reactor on the island. The villagers knew that this would never happen. The forests surrounding the village were too treacherous and occasionally the Lifestream would gush from the earth. No one had managed to tame the Lifestream or make it profitable, which after all was the aim of the Shinra Company, so the villagers refused to concern themselves with the threat.

When the chosen day arrived, the villagers gathered in the square to hear the speech from the President vainly trying to convince them to allow him to build. Halfway through his speech, he became aware that no one was listening to him. He became enraged but calmly continued his speech. He accepted and answered all the questions the villagers threw at him. The more they asked him, the less he wanted to build his reactor here. It seemed like such a waste of resources that could be better used somewhere else. He turned to the man at his left and whispered something. The President then asked for final questions and brought the speech to a close. Tired, he requested that he be lead to the nearest inn or hotel before he left to return to Midgar.

The village headman was flustered. There was no inn in Mideel. The only places he could think of were the clinic which would be full of ill folk, or Elena's house. He decided on the latter and led the way.

As soon as the President was comfortable in one of the upstairs bedrooms, the village headsman plucked up the courage to ask what the accompanying personnel would do. The man with the dark suit looked as though he could stay awake forever, but the headsman's eye was drawn to the two military grunts that were with him. One seemed calm and at ease, but the other was constantly fidgeting. Before he could even open his mouth, the tall man addressed the issue.

'Stop playing with that firearm Grunt.'

The headman watched as the fidgety grunt immediately stopped playing with the gun. Instead, they aimed it between the eyes of their superior.

'Don't speak to me like that Tseng. You know as well as I do that I could blow you brains out right this minute.'

'Then stop drawing attention to yourself. Really, this was your idea. You asked to come on this mission.'

The gun was lowered.

'I wanted to see if I'd made the right choice.'

'And have you?'

'Yes.'

It was at this point, the headman made himself known and enquired about their plans. The tall man answered that they would remain on guard duty until it was time to leave for Midgar. The headman nodded, but as he turned to leave he saw a bright flash of golden hair from underneath the fidgety grunt's helmet. Wisely, deciding not to comment on it, he left the house and returned to his own.

He sees her occasionally. Sometimes he's summoned to Midgar to speak with the head of Urban Regeneration, a lovely man, fond of cats. Sometimes she'll walk past the window when they're talking, usually behind the President. One day he saw her with two men; one with dark skin and shades, the other with crimson hair who kept twirling a stick. They were laughing. He'd never seen her laugh before. She looked radiant. He took that image with him when he returned to Mideel. He kept it with him always and never told a soul. He always looked out for her, wanting just to speak with her once.

Until she found him. He had been unreceptive to the ideas of the company, she said, as he sat there tied to a chair unable to move. Surely he could see that the plans were for the benefit of the community. He was just being proud and stubborn. Shinra had ways of changing your mind she said. She lowered his gag, so he could respond.

'Your grandmother would be ashamed of what you've become Elena.'

He didn't feel the bullet as it entered his brain. The last thing he heard was the explosion of the gun as she fired it. Satisfied she left the room smiling.

Until she got to her own office where there are no cameras. The tears fell thick and fast. She pulled out her grandmother's fire materia that she kept in her drawer and looked at.

When you have no one left, when everyone's been taken from you, all you want is for the world to suffer as much as you have.

She kissed the materia and locked it away again. She dried her eyes and refreshed her makeup. She squared her shoulders and walked out of the room, just like she had done all those years ago.

It was time for the next mission.


End file.
